Police prepared for trouble during the Notting Hill Carnival

Following the revelation that thousands of extra police constables will remain in London during the August Bank Holiday, police confirmed yesterday exactly how many officers will be on the streets during the Notting Hill Carnival.

“At Notting Hill specifically we will have a total of 5,500 officers on duty on Sunday and 6,500 on duty on Monday. But in addition to that we will have over 4,000 additional officers on duty across London as well as the thousands who are normally on duty over a weekend,” said Commander Steve Rodhouse yesterday.

“Some of those additional officers will come from forces outside London, through mutual aid arrangements, and the Met has cancelled all leave for staff and rearranged duties.”

This year’s carnival will officially end at 7pm on both Sunday and Monday, with local pubs and other businesses having been asked to close between 7pm and 9pm.

A heavier than normal police presence at this year’s carnival seems to have been influenced by the London-wide riots of a few weeks ago. Police are also worried about gang activity erupting around the capital during the carnival period.

“At this stage it would be fair to say we have intelligence to suggest that some gangs want to come to Carnival and create trouble for us. Plus we know that some people believe we will be diverted from policing the rest of London due to the Notting Hill Carnival, leaving the rest of the Capital without a policing presence,” said Commander Rodhouse. “This is not the case.”

Thirty five arrests have already been made as part of a proactive attempt to crack down on potential troublemakers. Metal detectors, automatic numberplate recognition devices, stop-and-search tactics and specialist officers will all be used to reduce the risk of violence.

Is is a massive safety issue every year. It is not the police who make the rules, carnival is a body of people including mas, pan, sound systems, fire, ambulance, police and the local community. There is always the potential for big problems and more so as every year youth’s roll out of bed at 3pm and come down to actually cause trouble, and do so every year already. You would know this if you had got caught up in it. So any rules laid down are really to try and protect the public, the bands are not the ones causing problems and we are quite able to get round the route and back home in safety, the police are there to protect the carnival goer for us.